18-year-old Sofia Orr was sentenced last Sunday, February 25, to 20 days in prison for refusing to enlist in the Israeli army and take part in the war on Gaza and the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories. Sofia refuses because she believes war has no winners, and she wants to show that there’s another way. A protest was held the same day in support of the Israeli woman’s right to refuse to join the army outside the military base of Tel-Hashomer.
She announced earlier that Feb. 25 was the date of her conscription, but she said on this date “I will refuse conscription and will probably go to military prison because of that,” and added: “I refuse to participate in the violent policies of oppression and apartheid that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people, especially now with the war.”
Sofia Orr (third from right) and comrades protest outside the military base of Tel-Hashomer, Sunday, February 25, 2024 (Photo: Eran Torbiner)
Sofia Orr announced that she received death and rape threats after she refused to join the army. She was also accused by social media far-right users of “treason.” British newspaper The Times reported citing Orr: “Terrible things have happened in Israel, but terrible things are also happening in Gaza, and I feel sorry for everyone.”
Tal Mitnick, 18, from Tel Aviv who participated at the Sunday’s protest and was jailed twice for 30 days after refusing to join the Israeli army, said “More killing and more violence won’t bring back the lives lost on 7 October. I know people are hurt. Traumatized. But this doesn’t make anything better. To root out extremist ideas from Palestinian society, we must root them out in Israel.”
Orr and Mitnick are among 230 young students who signed on last September a letter by conscientious objectors under the banner of “Youth Against Dictatorship.” As opposed to previous “refusenik letters,” the last letter connects opposition to the far-right government’s judicial overhaul to conscientious objection due to the occupation.
According the letter, “As young women and men about to be conscripted into Israeli military service, we say NO to dictatorship in Israel and in the occupied Palestinian territories. We hereby declare that we refuse to join the military, until democracy is secured for all who live within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government,” the statement said. “Despite our six months of determined struggle for a genuine democracy that has been waged in the streets almost daily, the government continues to pursue its destructive agenda. We truly fear for our own future, and for the future of all who live here. In view of this, we have no choice but to take extreme measures and refuse to serve in the army. A government that destroys the judiciary is not a government that we can serve. An army that militarily occupies another people is not an army that we can join.”
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=31484
